art….because therapy is expensive

Tag Archives: journal a day

June 30, I was honored to be a participant in Shannon Green’s Inspiration Conspiracy video hop. I was invited early this year and since then I have done a major sprint to learn new technology. I was not born with a mouse in my hand and haven’t had jobs that required me to learn much more than very basic computer skills. Shannon’s invitation meant I needed to “learn” youtube and I needed to learn to shoot a video in a tutorial, over-the-desk style.

Shannon was a remarkable and encouraging teacher and cheerleader. I created a video about making tie dyed bookmarks for Inspiration Conspiracy. To date, it’s received over 1300 views, which is a lot considering I’m completely new to creating videos and I don’t really know what I’m doing.

Since June 30, I’ve been recording how to and instructional and show-and-tell art videos daily. I’m steadily improving my skills in Movie Maker; learning to edit, add and control music, add photos, and other cinematic skills.

I also launched a yoga practice over the past month and a half. I’m 45 days into a daily yoga ritual. Whether it’s Goddess Pose or Hero Pose or Yoga for Complete Beginners (I am raising my hand- that’s me) or Yoga for Anxiety ( a personal favorite), starting my day on a mat has worked wonders for my physical and mental health. I’m really grateful to Adriene at Yoga With Adriene. She is my personal yoga trainer.

I realized last night, I’d allowed my blog to lapse. And I don’t want to lose connection with my writing again. Did I mention launching a youtube channel takes a lot of time?

Not exactly a journal, but it is a repository for memories and that is sort of like a journal! SO MANY THINGS are packaged in blister packs. The recycle number on these microphone cable packs was a 3 and that means I could not put them in my recycling. The more I looked at them, […]

Today’s journal is a simple altered magazine insert. l glued some pages together and then used paints and sprays to create backgrounds. I’ll use the journal as a premade background play space.

Magazine inserts are great journal templates as they are already pre made books with a stapled spine. I’ve used a lot of the magazine inserts as glue books. I really had fun with my gifted & thrifted and deep discount sprays.

Inserts are fun for kids. A little project like this makes a great memory book.

Here’s a video about making inserts for a Pizza Box Midori Style Notebook. These little inserts are of course, perfect for midoris but they are so neat that they make nice gifts all by themselves. This is an easy craft and perfect for kids and adults as well.

If you’d like to know how to make the midori notebook, see my June 8 post.

I kind of fell in love with midori style travelers notebooks a couple of years ago. It was in December and during my end of the year down time, I stumbled on the remarkable world of personal planners and planning. Although I never quite got the hang of using a personal planner -my life and work seems to plan itself in a spiral bound notebook- I did make a few midori style notebooks from things I had around the house. Last year, I made inserts and put them in my etsy shop and was happy to sell quite a few.

Though I never quite got the hang of planning, I did meet a lot of really cool, wonderful, fascinating planning folks and I treasure those friendships more than I can say.

My Journal a Day for June 8 is a midori style travelers notebook I made from a pizza box. In this case, a Red Baron Pizza Box. Boyfriend loves Red Baron.

I also recorded a video about how to create this fun, easy, kid friendly craft from things you probably have on hand.

This journal didn’t quite meet my hour to an hour and a half time frame but I wanted to revisit this technique I learned from Jennibellie. I opted to design my greeting card journal on a smaller scale than Jenny’s excellent work. I used five de-greeted the five inside signature cards by painting over the text, greeting and personal notes with off white acrylic paint. This does take a few layers of acrylic. You could manage the same sort of de-greeting by simple pasting paper over the greeting and personal info. I intend to use my Angel Journal as an a small art journal for my study of Archangels. So painting over the greeting allowed me to make the start of a “clean slate” on which to sketch and write.

I bound the Angel Journal using two cards that were bigger than the inside signature cards. I used a narrow greeting card as a spine for the book. I bound the Angel Journal with embroidery floss and scrap beads I had on hand. For the front choose a favorite Angel greeting card and glued the front of the card to the front of the Angel Journal.

This project was a complete scrap project. I used what I had on hand. The only thing that was purchased along the way was glue. I always have glue on hand so this project required no extra trips to the store or paper packs or other stuff.

You can make these journals quickly but if you choose the beaded spine, it does take a while. But the results are beautiful and would make a lovely gift for someone. You could also arrange the books in different themes: birds, flowers, nature, Santa, snowmen, Easter, etc.

So save your greeting cards or put the word out to family and friends that you’d like to have theirs!